Led lamps for plants

18-01-2018

Tips and ideas

Electric energy is becoming more expensive, which forces the population to use cost-effective appliances for lighting the house. DIY LED bulbs today are no longer a rarity. Incandescent bulbs have long worked their time and are gone. They were replaced by many other lighting devices, created according to environmental standards. Using them allows you to save energy and money. For lighting and illumination used the latest design of lamps, ribbons with LEDs. About these devices and will be discussed.

Lamps and their effect on plants

Novice gardeners often face many problems. One of them is the lighting of the greenhouse. Science has long proven the positive effect of light on plants. It is worth remembering the spectral analysis of white light. It consists of green, blue and red colors. Almost all plants have a green leaf color. This means that from the sunlight they absorb blue and red for themselves, and reflect green, they absolutely do not need it.

If you mix red with blue, we see purple. It is he who is needed for plant health. Therefore, for their growth it is better to use LED lighting, use lamps for greenhouses, in which there is no green color. They lack and harmful ultraviolet and infrared colors. Therefore, the range of LED lamps today is considered the most effective for highlighting the future harvest.

The principle of operation of a conventional LED is very simple. A current is supplied to it, which, in turn, is converted into light rays. LED light bulb consists of such parts:

optical system;
enclosures;
heat dissipating substrate.

Such lamps for home and in the greenhouse are quite expensive, but can work well at low temperatures. High temperatures significantly reduce their life, can disable the LED. Lamps due to the substrate does not heat up. They can be placed next to the plants. The connection to the network takes place with the usual E27 and E14 base. When purchasing lamps or LED ribbons, you should pay attention to the following parameters:

area of the illuminated area;
lamp life;
supply voltage;
instrument power;
lighting angle;
the size;
weight.

The angle of illumination can be from 90 to 360 °. Dimensions and weight of lighting devices also have significant differences. You can check the lamp for its flicker by looking at it through the viewfinder of a digital camera. How to make a LED lamp with your own hands? When making it, several factors need to be taken into account:

To control the lamp, you need a special device - a driver that needs to be inserted into the base.

For large greenhouses need appropriate bulbs high power.

There are a lot of powerful LED lights. There may be more than a hundred pieces. Often in the factory, lamps for greenhouses are completed with LEDs in red and blue. Special reflectors provide directional LED lighting for the greenhouse. Each planted plant in this case receives a certain portion of the light. Lighting is turned on every morning and evening.

Lamps for greenhouses have the following advantages:

they are very economical;
have high durability;
have great light output;
save electricity;
products are environmentally friendly;
do not require disposal in special conditions;
do not harm plants and man;
differ in maintainability;
the crop ripens 10-15 days earlier than usual.

Fixtures for greenhouses 10 times less than the usual energy consumption. They can work continuously for at least 50 thousand hours, and often up to 100 thousand. It is more than 10 years. Even after such a period of burning, they simply reduce the level of luminous flux, but they do not always burn out. The only drawback of LED lighting greenhouses - the high cost of equipment. Therefore it is worth trying to make lamps for growing plants on their own.

How to make DIY LED lamp

To make a lamp for plants with your own hands, you need to prepare some tools:

multimeter for measuring electrical parameters;
electric soldering iron;
solder for soldering;
soldering flux;
heat-conducting glue;
heat conductive tape.

From the materials you will need:

FRM-R1 red LEDs - 5 pcs .;
FRM-B1 blue LEDs - 5 pcs .;
aluminum radiator (can be from a beer can);
driver brand RLD10;
electric wire (preferably MGTF).

Any plate made of copper, aluminum, brass with an area of approximately 25 cm² per each LED can serve as a radiator. When heated, its temperature should not exceed 50 ° C, otherwise the LEDs will quickly burn. The LEDs themselves for the greenhouse should be selected with a capacity of 3 or 1 watt. It is recommended to solder the LED lamps using tweezers to remove excess heat. The blue LED housings are glued with conductive glue. Reds are also glued, but through a layer of conductive tape to isolate the plate from the substrate.

Assembly should be carried out only after checking the polarity of the products. It is indicated on the legs of the extruded minus.

Before soldering, you can check each LED with a multimeter. Each contact should be soldered very quickly, within 2-3 seconds. The chain is connected in series, plus it goes to the minus of the next element. Red and blue alternate. After assembling the entire circuit, you need to connect the driver RLD10 required power. Its power must be equal to the sum of the powers of all the elements in the chain.

Do-it-yourself greenhouse lighting requires consideration of certain conditions. They all need good protection from moisture. A driver for this purpose should preferably be placed in a shrinkable sleeve in the form of a tube. The joints of the wires are insulated with electrical tape. If after switching on the assembled LED flashlight with his own hands, it does not light up, the reason is the improper installation of any element. We'll have to look for it and solder it with exact polarity. Disadvantages of LED products with a large number of elements - they are extinguished when every luminous point in the circuit burns out, as the manufacture of the flashlight took place with the series connection of elements.

DIY LED lamp (video)

LED lamp manufacturing

You can make a single lamp yourself. The scheme of the LED lamp is very simple.

For work you will need:

spent halogen lamp;
bright LEDs;
limiting resistors;
glue;
aluminum sheet thin.

The used lighting element must be removed from the seat. To do this, a thin screwdriver picks up the putty and remove the insides. Aluminum (you can use a beer can) is folded to the size of the base reflector. It is necessary to pierce the holes for the LEDs, which are glued to the places they prepared. Then they are soldered sequentially. The excess ends are cut off. All soldering sites are filled with silicone.

The resulting design is inserted with glue into the base, all the gaps are again filled with silicone. On the base marker marks are made, indicating the polarity. The lamp connects to a DC source. If done correctly, it will light up immediately.

Natural sunlight in the greenhouse is not enough for plants. Therefore, they often arrange artificial lighting with the help of various lamps. Lamp for plants with their parameters should be suitable for plants on the spectrum.

The most suitable today is with the use of LEDs and LED lamps.

They are increasingly replacing the mercury and sodium lamps. Incandescent bulbs remained in the last century. Lighting a greenhouse with LEDs costs several times less than it did before. Making a LED lamp with your own hands is not uncommon among craftsmen and home craftsmen. The scheme of the LED installation consists of several names of parts and tools.

But even LED lighting of greenhouses does not provide all the spectrum plants need. The LED backlight scheme recommends red and blue colors. Scientists are currently working on creating pure white LEDs, which consists of all the colors of the rainbow. Today, the scheme of LED lighting plants 3-10 times spends less energy than conventional lamps.